Mixing Singles to Sound Like the Rest of the Album? | FAQ Friday - Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro

Today’s featured question is “We always mix singles but, when we make an album how do we make the mixes of all the songs have a unique sound concept?"
I am very conscious when doing this, we have to ensure we don’t make it sound like a really bad late ’90s thru mid-2000’s rock record. – You all know what I’m talking about!​​

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Produce Like A Pro is a website which features great tips to help the beginning recordist make incredible sounding home recordings on a budget.

[ngrddr]

Love these FAQ Fridays...so much useful tried and true information is found here every week. Thank you in spades Mr. Huart!

[ChrisThomasBone]

Hey Warren, I've noticed that the recent FAQ Friday episodes have had fewer questions with longer, more in-depth answers compared to earlier episodes, and I am LOVING it. Quality over quantity, we're all getting such amazing information from you.

I was doing a live sound gig where we had a bass DI blended with a mic, and I used one of your tricks where you cut the bass from the mics and only leave the low-end from the DI. It worked amazingly, it was so punchy and still had serious weight behind it. Thank you so much for helping me to grow my audio skills.

[ChrisThomasBone]

One aspect of speakers that I'm not sure if corrective software is able to account for, is the fact that different materials and designs used to create the actual cones will result in different transient and high end responses. For example, with a relatively soft cone that has a small degree of flex to it, when the center of the cone pushes and pulls, it takes time to spread to the outside of the cone, resulting in muddied transients and less accurate high frequencies. And of course there's all kinds of other aspects of a speaker's design that can affect the sound in a plethora of ways, each of which is correctable to differing amounts.


A speaker is more than just an eq curve, and no software (to my knowledge) can account for all of that.

[AudioReplica]

The rough mix is important because it gives you cues of what needs to be the focus and what stays on the background as supporters. What needs more attention and what needs to be left alone. A lot of ppl start inserting plugins and stuff right after importing files and miss the whole point of the song just because they are intrigued on making the drums slamming good ..or the guitars wide and wet as the ocean.

[GermsOilCotten]

Its awful refreshing finding this channel. I've been making music unprofessionally my whole life and strived to figure out certain methods cause I feel they are overlooked often in the more modern music. And it's super nice to see these videos where you advocate a lot of the methods I've gotten shit for trying to keep as they are too much work and you can fix it in post and I always say yes you can but the more you get right while recording the better the post production will go and over sound. Love this channel.

[gisellechacon]

Interesting take on mixing albums without ending up sounding "cookie cutter" from end-to-end. I don't do much commercial work, as I'm focused on my album project, so expedience isn't my top priority and I've actually resisted creating templates. I prefer to choose my tools as I go from an exhaustive list (about 850 plugins, I do need to weed) and commit to them early. Every instrument, every song is approached in a unique way. I find this is teaching me a lot about what's out there and stretching my musicianship. And while you might think I'd struggle with inconsistency, the album I'm producing sounds very cohesive. My ear and artistic sensibilities have guided me to complimentary results in spite of taking a unique path to every production. Not sure it's best for anyone else, but it has been effective for me, and my largely solo, somewhat Bob Ross-inspired approach to producing music.

[spiritphingaz_]

About you trying out sonar works, I think the reason the speakers maintained their characteristics is because you've probably done a great job with the acoustics of your room

[neovxr]

I applied quite some techniques that I learnt from Warren, or got confirmed by his teachings, how they make sense.
Especially about drum sound scape, and above considerations on making an album with different sounds.
On background vocals, if the same singer with a rich voice does 10 bg vc tracks, it may sound like a swarm of bees. I try to mitigate that with using phase shifting plugins, and give a different setting to every track. Also, grouping the vocals by musical content (high, low, "choir", or 2nd voice to follow lead vc etc.) and giving each group a focused sound distinct from the others.

[gfunkstube]

I liked the diatribe Warren! Interesting point about mixing each song on its merits. I've been mixing my band EP and my band mate was concerned that the songs are all different but I think it's a strength to not be trying to be too deep in a sound or genre. The mixes are all completely different too! Cheers Adam

[JAROCHELOcesarcastro]

You are very nice, kind and objective in your answers. It’s hard to find people doing what you do with love, passion on sharing this information. I’m new to your channel, I came here looking for information around making an album sound even but your answer just expanded my understanding of music production. Often we forget that this is art, and our tools are not made by luthiers and we are the bridge between pure art and music business.
Thank you! You made my 2020 better. I’m a beginner on this, I just recorded 10 songs to sell from home since I have no one gig booked for 2021

[Beatledave]

Love the FAQ Friday's Warren! I watch your vids over breakfast every day & pick up so many 'real world' tips from a real world pro! Great stuff! I'd like to ask which set of monitors behind you do you mainly mix on...and what percentage of time would you mix on headphones versus monitors? ie would you mix a project 70% on phones then go on to your monitors for final adjustments, or mainly use monitors with only checking on phones?

[Kevin-vqrv]

The backing vocals tips were just what I needed! Thank you very much! What I always do as well on BVs, is to delete the breaths and clipgain the "T's", "K's", and "Ss". Have a nice weekend.

[ZerroHouseProd]

The answer to your first question just saved me a ton of work. I've been putting a project together from individual songs recorded over about a 20 year period, and I had it in my head that I needed to get them all sounding like they were recorded at the same time. Thanks a ton!

[MikeLuke]

Okay, I need to ask one question now as well: When you pan tracks left to right, either hard left / hard right or anywhere in between, how do you make sure that the mix doesn't fall apart when switched to mono. Also with drum room mics in rather big rooms. Is it a question of EQ or phase checking? Thanks, Warren.

[FakingANerve]

I'm surprised to neither hear about, nor see comments about AKG K701s in thos discussion of headphone mixing. They radically changed my mixes, and that was coming from fairly decent monitors in a treated room. I later learned about Quincy Jones and others relying on them and I thought "yeah, that makes sense!"

[vandybeats]

This makes sense. 👌 I'll apply this.

[bigmorrisable]

Thank you for the awesome intro Kind Sir!!! you have new subscriber !!!! I have a new Home!!!

[splashesin]

Yay! Now I don't feel too bad about always doing no effect vocals, and always saving copies before doing anything to anything. I would love some audio technicas, after researching for a few years trying to find something comparable to what I like, and am surgically holding together with gaffer tape. Thank you Warren! 😊

[hifijohn]

Interesting topic you hit upon, as someone who has been into hifi (ergo the screen name)for most of my life, one of the great debates was always between subjectivism vs objectivism.Objectivists have said to me just EQ and two speakers to a flat response and they will sound the same, but that doesn't take cabinet rezonance and distortion and dispersion patterns into consideration, sure you can take a cheap pair of speakers EQ them and get 40 hz wave out of them if you don't mind 25% distortion.

[deyvids]

Thanks for the GREAT videos Warren! Even though I've been in business for over 45 years, I'm still learning!!
Your comments about stems prompted a question. Re: Stereo Buss processing. Do you leave all your buss processing alone (in line & adjusted as they were for the full mix) for each stem? It seems to me that the sound through the processing would sound different when the processors are reacting to a full mix (and its resulting level) as opposed to just the stem going through. Would the result be a different sounding "summed mix" versus a "normal" full mix? Thanks again for founding the community!